Is there a Jeffrey Campbell revival on the way?

«The most important writer of the last 20 years? Salinger. The most important director? Kubrick. The contemporary artist? Banksy. The electronic music group? Daft Punk. The greatest Italian vocalist? Mina. The invisible thread that connects these figures?  what the invisible red thread is that connects them all, all these most important figures in their respective fields? None of them let themselves be seen». This is one of the fundamental quotes spoken by Jude Law in The Young Pope by Paolo Sorrentino, and it immediately comes to mind when discussing Jeffrey Campbell, a figure who in BuzzFeed, back in 2013, was not accidentally defined as «the J.D. Salinger of platform shoes». And for being the designer of a brand born in 2000, which gained unprecedented fame during the Tumblr era, able to seduce both celebrities and girls from all over the world while preserving his reputation intact, it is surprising that Campbell so jealously guards his secrecy. The trick to such lasting success is, as always in these cases, the focus on his own offering: always modern designs (at one point, for example, the brand proposed heel-less shoes with a very avant-garde style) but most importantly always accessible. Campbell’s shoes are simply present, available, within reach – and people buy them.

Outside the highest bastions of luxury and wealth, in the real world that is, and especially in that era that spanned from 2008 to 2016, it was Campbell who created and sustained the platform heel mania with a model, the Lita, that everyone has seen at least once in their life, at least in this hemisphere. The phenomenon wasn’t limited to the past: Jennie Kim of Blackpink and Tiffany Young wear them on stage and in life; this year, Sabrina Carpenter brought them to Coachella and Dua Lipa to the streets of London, not to mention editorials, TikToks from the D’Amelio sisters, and, going back in time, even an iconic scene from Sydney Sweeney in Euphoria. Now the brand has decided to expand: it will produce bags, belts, and bracelets in addition to various accessories, and many signs suggest, if not a revival, a return in grand style. But why?

Aspirational Satisfaction

There is much talk these days about "aspirational customers". Brands and marketers are practically searching for them with a lantern, in a market scenario split between the constant display of luxury products on social media and the wide availability of fast fashion styles and models. The problem is twofold: in the case of luxury, unless you have a soaring bank account, it's not even worth thinking about entering a store due to the now unattainable prices; in the case of fast fashion, if one overlooks the poor quality and the uncontested dominance of plastic fibers, one has to settle for mass-produced and algorithmic products, devoid of specificity but especially devoid of that incredible allure that, at all market levels, comes from the name of a designer, the charisma of a brand. After all, a brand like Massimo Dutti has built growing success on a slightly more premium product and a name on the door that does not correspond to a real person but gives the impression of one. Jeffrey Campbell (and his wife Christina, who we assume played a large part in the brand's success) does almost the opposite: while not manifesting physically, his point of view, his intentionality is clear; the brand possesses its own personality and style that makes it feel like the designs come from someone, but above all, the brand's stated mission, very "American" in its candid optimism, is to «create bold shoes for everyone at an affordable price».

The cautious expansion of the brand, which after 24 years is exploring new product categories, is a sign of renewed ambition. Certainly, even across the ocean (Campbell and his brand are based in Los Angeles), the realization of a new public need has emerged: that of a brand that doesn't try so hard to escape the customer, to put up barriers; a brand that offers aspirations that can be fulfilled. All this, of course, while avoiding the impersonality of fast fashion without an author or face. This is where the famous middle market lies, the most densely populated customer segment yet deprived of desirable access to constantly advertised products. Especially since in recent years, there's been a growing nostalgia for a time that is familiar in our memories from ten or fifteen years ago, but incredibly distant: a nostalgia for the ads of American Apparel and Abercrombie, for Dirty Mondays jeans (which, not by chance, should return), and all those brands that marked the Y2K era and that now, upon reflection, weren’t bad at all. If today Jeffrey Campbell (and also Steve Madden) plans to expand, it's precisely because this demand for products «for everyone at an affordable price» is more present than ever – even if balancing accessibility and brand reputation, which must be familiar and reliable but not diluted by too much commercial omnipresence, is no easy task. Ultimately, and perhaps somewhat trivially, it all boils down to the value proposition of each brand: right now, this is precisely what’s being debated, and in the future, the brands that have a perfect one will emerge. We'll see if Jeffrey Campbell will be among them.